Orbán channelled public money into propaganda through Hungarian billionaire Lőrinc Mészáros (Day 150 of the Tisza government)

More than a year ago, we launched our Hungary Briefing, a weekly round-up of the election campaign. Since the historic vote in April to remove Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government, the series has followed the new Tisza administration and its first moves in office. This week’s topics: How Viktor Orbán used Lőrinc Mészáros. According to Orbán, they deliberately did not give money to the liberals. Orbán’s brother also has a gold-convoy case. A wealth tax is coming. Support for Hungarian media beyond the borders. This week’s opinion polls: slight drop for Tisza, strong support for the Olympics How Viktor Orbán used Lőrinc Mészáros. The investigative outlet Direkt36 revealed important details about the links between Lőrinc Mészáros’s companies and Orbán-era propaganda in a new series of articles. The investigators obtained internal documents from a company called V-Híd, which showed that the firm belonging to the Mészáros portfolio paid out several billion forints between 2022 and 2026 to influencers in the Megafon network. The oligarch was not stingy. V-Híd is one of the most important and most profitable companies in the Mészáros empire, primarily engaged in railway construction. It owes its success almost entirely to the fact that it won huge public procurement contracts under Fidesz governments. In recent years, V-Híd has become the dominant player in railway construction in Hungary, pushing out its competitors. Enormous dividends have been taken out of the company by the Mészáros clan (most recently, despite weaker results, 10 billion forints, or around €25m). The Direkt36 article also reveals that Orbán-era propaganda was financed directly from the company’s revenue. Donation contracts were leaked showing that V-Híd regularly sent hundreds of millions of forints as “gifts” to Megafon. In 2024 alone, they sent 3 billion forints (around €7.6m at the time) in support to the influencer network. The formula was very simple: through public procurement, the government stuffed the Mészáros group’s companies with public money, and part of the revenue generated was channelled to the propaganda machine. From 2020, Megafon was a key communication channel for Fidesz, where well-known influencers conveyed the party’s messages and huge sums were spent on online advertising. The money won through public tenders did not only go towards financing propaganda. Direkt36 also uncovered luxury perks V-Híd and other Mészáros companies offered their staff. Many would envy V-Híd’s team-building events. In 2024, nine employees of the company travelled by private jet to a château in south-western France, at a cost 62 million forints, or about €150,000, including €500 spent on cigars. According to Direkt36, V-Híd has spent more than 1 billion forints in total – roughly €2.5m – on foreign trips in recent years. On one trip to Tajikistan, V-Híd paid out €46,000 – the Central Asian country is a popular destination for exotic hunting excursions, and Mészáros also took part in such a hunting tour. The Mészáros clan were also keen on yachting and spent money on private jets. One private jet linked to the Mészáros family was used at least once by Orbán himself. The money did not go to the liberals Fidesz has tied itself in knots after the arrest of culture minister Balázs Hankó. Hankó is suspected of aggravated breach of fiduciary duty causing particularly significant financial loss, committed in a criminal conspiracy, and the court has placed him in pre-trial detention. The Hankó case blew up shortly after the elections, when activist Áron Molnár revealed that the National Cultural Fund had disbursed more than 17 billion forints (around €44m) to artists close to Fidesz for the purposes of the party's campaign. After a few months of investigation, the authorities reached the former minister, now a member of parliament, who said the allocation of grants had been lawful and that a politically-motivated show trial had been launched against him. Shortly before he was taken into custody, Hankó told HírTV, a Fidesz-friendly channel, that being a Fidesz member or linked to Fidesz had never been a precondition for receiving NCA funding. Orbán, however, explained the Hankó case differently in a speech at a closed-door event, from which former state secretary Péter Takács shared a clip. According to Orbán, Hankó was the only culture minister since 2010 who did not give support to the “liberals in Budapest”, and that is why, in his view, he was locked up.